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- Oct 18, 2016
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I have a question about cat's relationship. My husband and I adopted two cats three months ago, one 1.5-year-old female and one 2-year-old male. The female cat seems to have very dominant personality. She always licks the other cat non-stop, pressing him down or biting him if he tries to stand up, is always more aggressive when wresting and likes to chase him around, and always kicks him out if he's in the cat bed she wants (we have two) - note that he's bigger and much stronger than her.
HOWEVER, when it comes to food she does not even dare to show competition (we feed them wet food three times a day and leave fixed amount of dry food in a food ball). Usually it's his call to pick which bowl of wet food to eat and she always has to go to the other one. When he's done with his bowl and still feels like eating more he will go directly to her bowl and eat (actually most of time he doesn't finish his own before going to hers), and she never fights back. When she does not like her own food or has finished hers she will watch him eating and wait until he finishes to see if anything is left. If you only see them eating you'll think he's bullying her, but other pictures shows the opposite. We interfered sometimes but not always. This is mainly because we want him to have more wet food to gain water and want her to be on diet - she has gained 5 pounds since she came (originally 6 pounds)!
On the other hand, the male cat is a SUPER picky cat and every time we literally beg him to eat more. Plus he doesn't like to drink water and usually pees in a small amount (contrary to her), and we're hoping having him eating as much wet food as he can can help to prevent future urinary disease. So our primary concern is whether HE gets enough wet food. We do give them different amount of wet food but they always end up eating each others. We also tried to separate them when feeding but he ate considerably less when eating alone, so we changed back to feed them together. We're keeping the current way of feeding. I'm just curious about why they behave this way - why she's dominant in some ways but very submissive when eating, and why he comes so strong in eating. We would love to hear any input.
FYI, he has been on street for a unknown period of time while she's surrendered by the owner. But contrary to intuition, he does not strike me as being very eager on food - does not eat fast, never touch human food, is very picky, most time doesn't finish his food. She is the complete opposite. She came to us very thin (6 pounds in 1.5 years old). Our guess is that her previous owner did not provide her enough food (and attention + training. She shows some signs of bad parenting (don't know how to cover poop even she tries hard) and is not well-mannered (like to bite people)). So if anything, it should be her who's more defensive in food, or just being dominant as she always is. So I really don't know what's going on here.
HOWEVER, when it comes to food she does not even dare to show competition (we feed them wet food three times a day and leave fixed amount of dry food in a food ball). Usually it's his call to pick which bowl of wet food to eat and she always has to go to the other one. When he's done with his bowl and still feels like eating more he will go directly to her bowl and eat (actually most of time he doesn't finish his own before going to hers), and she never fights back. When she does not like her own food or has finished hers she will watch him eating and wait until he finishes to see if anything is left. If you only see them eating you'll think he's bullying her, but other pictures shows the opposite. We interfered sometimes but not always. This is mainly because we want him to have more wet food to gain water and want her to be on diet - she has gained 5 pounds since she came (originally 6 pounds)!
On the other hand, the male cat is a SUPER picky cat and every time we literally beg him to eat more. Plus he doesn't like to drink water and usually pees in a small amount (contrary to her), and we're hoping having him eating as much wet food as he can can help to prevent future urinary disease. So our primary concern is whether HE gets enough wet food. We do give them different amount of wet food but they always end up eating each others. We also tried to separate them when feeding but he ate considerably less when eating alone, so we changed back to feed them together. We're keeping the current way of feeding. I'm just curious about why they behave this way - why she's dominant in some ways but very submissive when eating, and why he comes so strong in eating. We would love to hear any input.
FYI, he has been on street for a unknown period of time while she's surrendered by the owner. But contrary to intuition, he does not strike me as being very eager on food - does not eat fast, never touch human food, is very picky, most time doesn't finish his food. She is the complete opposite. She came to us very thin (6 pounds in 1.5 years old). Our guess is that her previous owner did not provide her enough food (and attention + training. She shows some signs of bad parenting (don't know how to cover poop even she tries hard) and is not well-mannered (like to bite people)). So if anything, it should be her who's more defensive in food, or just being dominant as she always is. So I really don't know what's going on here.
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